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KARACHI: It has been learned that work on almost all ongoing uplift projects across the metropolis to a halt as the Sindh government has frozen all funds allocated for the city’s Annual Development Programme (ADP).
Sources in the construction industry have informed that the payment of over Rs3 billion to government contractors was withheld due to the freezing of the ADP funds. Meanwhile, ADP funds were released for other districts of Sindh.
Sources further informed that the suspension of work on the ongoing uplift projects would not only lead to a lot of hardships for the contractors but it was bound to adversely affect the existing civic and municipal infrastructure across the city.
Contractors with the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation have informed that over 300 contractors of the city’s municipal administration had been waiting for payments for a long time after due approval of their bills.
The contractors further said that an amount of Rs418 million was released to the KMC by the provincial government for payments to the contractors for the work done on the ongoing uplift schemes in the second quarter.
“However, contractors were not given their payments as the offices of the KMC’s concerned department were closed in the wake of Covid-19,” they added.
The contractors appealed to Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to immediately unfreeze the funds allocated for the current ADP so that thousands of poor skilled and unskilled daily wagers could be placed to jobs on time.